As you may have already seen, your Board decided it was time to change the way we charge (or don’t charge) for the events the PLCA does every year.

Photo submitted by Kathryn Oda

At the winter board meeting a Financial Task Force presented their report to the Board about the ‘state of financial affairs’ and suggestions on how to maintain a healthy financial situation into the future.

The recommendation to charge a nominal fee to non-members who attend our events was passed by your Board. The events include the July 1st barbecue, rock bass derby, regatta (members and non-members have always paid but now non-members will pay a higher fee) and movie night.

The fee is a per person fee or a family fee and our hope is that more non-members will then decide to join PLCA because if they attend some or all of the events it costs less just to be a member.

Philosophically this is the way many organizations already run their events and we felt it was time PLCA did the same.

After serving on our Board since the 1990s as our membership chair, David Kells decided to resign in May of this year. As you have experienced, he has already been sorely missed. Our winter/spring newsletter mailing was handled by a new volunteer and many of you received membership invoices within for other people. We have learned from this mistake and I apologize to all who experienced this. Now this summer newsletter is going out later than historically, again due to a shortage of manpower – always a problem for the PLCA and other volunteer groups. David did the work of two or three people over these many years and PLCA is very thankful for that and wish him good health and happiness.

Another item that came out of the Financial Task Force was the recommendation to produce only one full newsletter per year and replace the second one with a President’s Message. In 2018 the ‘message’ will come out in the winter and the newsletter in the spring. This saves the association money and volunteer time. We are lucky that our editor, Michelle Annette Tremblay of WordBird Media, has done such an excellent job over the past three years and we will continue to have her services but the production cost savings of forgoing a second newsletter will allow us to have no fee increases into the near future.

Those of you on Lower Paudash may have noticed the surveyors in late May assessing your shoreline from boats. This finished off the ‘Love Your Lake’ program that PLCA has been involved with for the past three years.

Last summer all of Paudash, north of the bridge, was done and every property owner received their personal, confidential report in April. Lower Paudash owners will receive theirs next April. It is so important that those whose reports indicate some action is needed to please do so, and contact me at the PLCA so we can help you. A fuller report is in my Lake Steward’s Report within the summer 2017 newsletter.

The North Hastings Fish Hatchery continued in May with their five year stocking plan of lake trout into Upper Paudash – at the end of this period nearly 25,000 locally genetic lake trout will have been added to our lake thanks to the volunteers in Bancroft at this hatchery – support them whenever you can.